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For me, it's a budget issue. I have enough of a problem keeping up with the DAZ line of characters. I don't need another. I know that some have said you use tools to get content created for say V4 to work on Dawn, but then I ask myself "Why? I already have Victoria 4."
I get that some folks are going to like her. And I wish all the best to Hivewire. In the 3D content and tools world I've always been a proponent of the idea that competition makes all of the products better.
I just don't feel a NEED to go get her, play with her, etc. when there is so much I still haven't done with the V4/Genesis/Genesis 2 characters I already have.
Vicki has been in the huff with me for a while, not only can Genesis steal her clothes, but so can Dawn :lol:
Depends on how many better bends products you have for V4 to make her joints look nice ... Dawn is weightmapped and bends better.
(OK, I still use A3 too - and her bending is ... much worse than V4 - so don't mind me)
There is a weightmapped version of V4 that takes some work to use (especially with clothes) - AeonSoul's/AlfaSeed's/AerySoul's/AwfulSoul's weightmapped V4 is very new and there isn't much advertising for her.
Don't do that to me, Kerya. :P I was like "Wha? AS released something new and I didn't buy it yet?" You must be referring to their new Alice figure which has a LOT of fixes / helpers for the joints and bending and stuff. I've had a bit of time to play with her. I'm using her in my The Architect project that I'm working on (when I find the time).
I still feel like right now, by the time I figure out how to get the best out of Genesis and Genesis 2 (I've been out of the DAZ world since just after DS 3.0 was released), Genesis 3 will be out ... Even if I bought Dawn, she'd just sit there waiting to be used "some day".
Don't do that to me, Kerya. :P I was like "Wha? AS released something new and I didn't buy it yet?" You must be referring to their new Alice figure which has a LOT of fixes / helpers for the joints and bending and stuff. I've had a bit of time to play with her. I'm using her in my The Architect project that I'm working on (when I find the time).
I still feel like right now, by the time I figure out how to get the best out of Genesis and Genesis 2 (I've been out of the DAZ world since just after DS 3.0 was released), Genesis 3 will be out ... Even if I bought Dawn, she'd just sit there waiting to be used "some day".
Na ... I am talking about this:
http://www.renderforever.com/
and you don't have to buy it.
It's free.
*grin*
Have fun!
More info here: http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?83864-AlfaSeed-has-given-permission-to-release-their-freebie-weight-mapped-V4...
I remember being SO excited to get Dawn. Like, literally freaking out excited, which never happens to me. But after playing with the figure a bit, I realized three important things: One, she's not better than any of my other figures, either in terms of detail or bending. Two, the prices for her products aren't very friendly to my budget. Three, Genesis (and later Genesis 2) are far more flexible and versatile. She's been uninstalled for quite some time now.
For me, she's too "adolescent" to be very interesting (too few items for her). I'm in a comfortable situation to be able to use Genesis freely, but I found one stunning use for Dawn: she makes great badass heroines. Her face, whichever expression you apply, she still grins in a way that reminds me of "The Omen". So instead of investing into femme fatale packages or Wicked (Step)mothers-in-law, I can just use her without any problems. I didn't spend a buck on her and this single feature of her is just enough for me.
I really like Dawn. I have found a lot of vendor support for her, as well as quite a few freebies. I still support generation 4 and Genesis 1 characters, but I've not gotten into G2F/G2M and DAZ|Studio 4.6 because I'm tired of having to buy everything again because everything's now in a new format, namely DUF. With Dawn I had a reason to add Poser back into my 3D arsenal after a long absence, and with Netherworks wonderful Hair Conversion System, I have yet to be disappointed.
You can view a few of the Dawn renders I've done here --> http://3dpixelzone.com/WIP/poser/Dawn/
The last render on that page is of 2 characters, the one on the left is a free character set for Dawn based on the old time actress Clara Bow, and the one on the right is a free character set by the same artist originally done for Vicky 3. I titled the render The Bow Sisters. I think Dawn is very versatile.
I don't have your budget issues but I agree with every other word you've written.
I used that tutorial to create a genesis female clone and I can use all my genesis clothes on her.
I think you will find very few. Personally I only used morphs and things that are either free or purchasable, many other finalist did as well.
To state that Dawn can only be altered using expensive products or skills you don't have shows that you have little experience with her, just because you don't think you could do something doesn't mean that someone else 'cheated' to do it.
...I don't consider creating your own morphs if you have the skill in that, or using another application such as a modelling or sculpting programme "cheating". It is more advanced than I could do given I only have the base model since, as I've mentioned, I couldn't afford to buy into a whole new figure line with morphs, wardrobe, skin maps, and hair from the ground up. I looked at the Dawn "starter package" after the HiveWire store went live and felt she still had a ways to go to do for my needs. This would have meant scripting morphs that just were not there to create a more viable teen and child character and give more variance to her face and form.
Dawn makes for a nice mature adult character, but I need more. I know that 3DU released a "teen" character morph for her but she has that "3DU" look, "cute", but still too distinctive.
In a way like some mentioned here, it kind of felt like going back to V4 with weight mapping added as one for the most part was limited to content expressly made for Dawn and couldn't mix her with other shapes/morphs. As more figures in the line are released, like a male, a child version, a toon figure etc, this will no doubt happen. Granted, I'm a bit spoiled having worked with Genesis when I can mix almost any body/head shapes and morphs available (even from the so called "legacy" figures) together to create unique almost one of-a-kind characters without having to resort to advanced techniques like scripting, modelling and sculpting.
There also has to be more seamless compatibility with Daz Studio as well as Carrara.
I'm sure given time Dawn will develop to that level and hopefully, I will be in a position to afford working with her.
I decided before she came out to just not bother. I use Aiko3 before any other female figure. After her, V4, Genesis and G2F are all #2
Greetings,
Just to note, while I initially invested in her and a few items, I quickly found that the market was heavily oriented towards Poser users, with few folks actually bothering to make their stuff compatible with DAZ Studio. While that's still often true, an interesting side effect of Dawn is that many previously V4-focused artists took the time to learn how to make weight-mapped clothing, and do the necessary for fitting to Dawn. They then turned around and have start applying that knowledge to making Genesis 2 items, for instance. Which is why, I believe, we're seeing more Genesis 2 stuff on non-DAZ sites.
I could be blowing smoke however, but it does seem like Dawn kick started more folks to produce for the newer figures.
-- Morgan
P.s. In terms of looks, I do find that too many of the Dawn characters retain the 'look' of the character to the point that I have trouble telling where they've changed it. One early morph didn't, and looked very much like something I'd use, but it came out Poser-only first, and I mistakenly bought it. I returned it, and didn't come back until too-long after the DS version was released, so I never picked it up.
She certainly has started a learning process.
For me it was the learning how to port DS morphs to Poser and the way back.
I like learning things.
I am with Cypherfox: I think a lot of vendors began dabbling with DS because of Dawn, found it quite easy to use (after first stumbling blocks) and decided to go for Gen2Fem too.
After seeing Miss_B's gallery, I found another use for Dawn: emo rebels. If you put some makeup on her and a quirky hairdo, you're all set thanks to her sharply-looking face.
Hivewire has a forum, you could ask there to users who have found the model to their liking, but asking here is like asking on a poser forum about G1 and G2, you're going to get a majority bias of users who can find any and every negative thing about those models and don't know what all the fuss is either.
No, you're not the only one, and I agree with you that she's not versatile enough, nor are there enough conversion programs and techniques for her... combine that with her separate Poser and DAZ rigs.
That said, as others have said, it's mainly a budget issue for me.
Dawn was a big ho-hum in my book. Let me start by saying she was destined to be a letdown given how much pre-launch hype there was around her. (Just like many movies/etc feel like a letdown when you finally see them because of how much they were hyped.) That said, when she finally came out:
1) This is obviously subjective and personal, but her default look does not appeal to me. And the morphs available at launch were limited. There was a big thread here about her "manface", with people arguing both sides. For me, the first thing I thought when I saw her was "manface" (even from the promo shots before her actual release). Again, this is highly subjective. Yes, morphs and/or 'full characters' can address this (e.g., I liked the look of 3DU's Alexis), but at launch, there was very little available (and there's still comparatively very little when you consider Genesis and even G2F's options from both DAZ and 3rd parties not to mention many of the 3rd party characters have been released as Poser injection morphs only).
2) As a Studio user, she didn't offer anything new. We'd already had all the tech in the form of Genesis for at least a year. Her biggest technical 'advance' in my perspective is more sensible UV maps; Genesis and G2F are still tied to some of the stupidity of the legacy DAZ figures when it comes to the UV maps (like ears having as much space as like half the torso, nails being a tiny corner in the limbs map, etc.)
3) As a Studio user, she's largely useless to me due to lack of content. This is because she's really two completely different figures sharing the same mesh and the bulk of third-party content released for her is Poser-only. Yes, there are things you can do to convert them to Studio, but I shouldn't have to be the one to do that. Especially when I have a much larger selection of products made to directly support Genesis and G2F available that require no work on my part to use. They should never have hyped the 'one figure for both platforms' as much as they did. Anyone that understands the underlying tech knows that could never work with the current versions of Studio and Poser, and all it does is put you in a situation where the Studio users all get annoyed and abandon the figure.
Between 2 and 3, she's expensive to buy into yet another new figure with only a fraction of the content available. While I purchased a few things for cheap (e.g., stuff that was available as Rendo Prime or on deep discount) just to experiment with her, I've personally avoided investing in her because she's just not worth the cost as a Studio user.
4) While there was a big launch of clothing and other content for her when she was released, and it continued for a little while after release, products for Dawn have now more or less dried up (my observation based on looking at the main paid-content web stores that target the Poser and Studio communities). In fact, as others have already mentioned, some of the Poser vendors that took the time to learn Studio to do proper support for their clothing on Dawn in Studio have now switched to creating G2F clothing instead. I suspect that's simply because G2F content is selling better than Dawn content, due to a larger (my assumption) potential market.
5) Another subjective thing and only partially related to Dawn, but I personally don't like the HiveWire3D webstore and have not purchased a single thing from them (other than creating the account to download the free base Dawn package). My #1 issue is that they don't tell you what the real sale savings are on items. I own enough content across multiple figures (my content dir is ~200GB now) that I now have a standing rule that I don't purchase anything unless it's at least 50% off. (Every once in a while there is something that just knocks your socks off and you buy it right off, but those are few and far between these days.)
Is she different from V4 WM from RDNA's one, that one that's in Zero-Priced Area? I don't know if I'm allowed to share the link, even though it's free and freebies were always allowed...
I have to say I agree with you on this one. I'm not crazy about their "stacking" system. So far, except for the free Dawn base, the only product I purchased was Lyrra's Shape of Dawn, which I installed, but admittedly haven't played with yet.
It's hard for me to get excited about a store that doesn't list their items separately, only stacked with several others for a "discount". Remove one item and the discount practically disappears completely. Makes you wonder if they'll ever have regular sales on individual items as other stores do. ~shrugs~
I'm doubting that. More realistically, the Poser version of Dawn clothing will probably be able to be autofitted to the DS version, since that's a area that's lacking.
...the SR-1 fix release is definitely news to me. Not being able to use my Daz clothing content with her (without going though a lot of work to manually convert it) was one of the big minuses. Hair fits have never been an issue for me. Heck, I use Koz's hairs with Genesis and G2F.
Still would like to be able to use Gen3/4 clothing (without needing third party conversion software) and see more body shaping options (similar to Zev0's Growing Up and Shape Shift for example)
I'm not so fond of the default Dawn, but there are some nice characters for her out there:
--
I use my daz clothing and have not done any work to manually convert it. I created a Genesis clone following the instructions to create a V4 clone. I would say that it took me a couple of hours and that's only because I messed it up the first time.
http://hivewire3d.com/forum/showthread.php?393-Create-a-V4-Clone-for-Dawn-a-tutorial
It's very easy to do and once you have created one you an use all the clothing for that particular figure on Dawn. No need to buy crossfit or whatever it is called.
There are no Daz figure clones coming in Dawn's SR1.
http://hivewire3d.com/forum/showthread.php?1155-Dawn-SR1-is-hand-crafted-made-with-love-coming-fresh-to-you!!&p=33984&viewfull=1#post33984
I used Zbrush on one character I created for the contest. But the rest were dialed.
For this character, I used Poser magnets to create the nose tip down, mid face out, and face size morphs then tweaked the face with additional dialed morphs.
Most of the characters I create with Dawn are just dialed.
These are five of the pieces I entered in the contest. (The sixth made it through the first round of judging)
Dawn of a New Era entries
These are other images I've created with Dawn.
A Glimpse
While I'd like to have a Creature Creator morph set, I am not finding it difficult to create unique and "non-Dawn" characters.
I love some of the morphs in Lyrra's Shape of Dawn set and use them often. Granted, the Hivewire Body morphs now include height morphs, so the Tall and Petite morphs from Shape of Dawn aren't as important. But, Lyrra's Petite morph is one I usually use.
I also use her head, hand, and feet size morphs frequently. I like exaggerating the human form ... usually it's not all that obvious, other times, I really mess with the proportions. The "mis"proportion should be rather obvious in this one.
Ken had a sale on his products recently. It may still be going on. So, yeah. I rather suspect there will be "normal" sales at Hivewire just as there are at other stores.
I like the value stacks. More importantly, I like being able to accumulate points based on my purchases and then spend them on the product of my choice for additional savings.
I have to say I agree with you on this one. I'm not crazy about their "stacking" system. So far, except for the free Dawn base, the only product I purchased was Lyrra's Shape of Dawn, which I installed, but admittedly haven't played with yet.
It's hard for me to get excited about a store that doesn't list their items separately, only stacked with several others for a "discount". Remove one item and the discount practically disappears completely. Makes you wonder if they'll ever have regular sales on individual items as other stores do. ~shrugs~
It's a Dawn template so that DS4 autofit will be able to fit clothing to Dawn, just like DS4 is able to fit clothing to Genesis.
Way I understand it is that instead of every DS4 Dawn user having to create their own autofit clone, the template will enable autofit to fit clothing to Dawn.
Ultimately, what it means is that those DS users who use Dawn and have a large closet of V4/Genesis clothing will be able to use all that clothing on her.
I've never liked any default figure that's been released by DAZ or Smith Micro. So, whether or not the default Dawn appealed to me didn't matter. It was what I could do with her. Which is a lot. Of course, I could be completely biased, but I just don't see Dawn in my characters ... anymore than I saw V4 in my V4 characters. I'm sure there are those who instantly know what base figure someone used to create their characters.
I don't find the base Dawn any more hideous than V4 or Genesis. But, everyone has different tastes, and what appeals to one person isn't necessarily going to appeal to another. It doesn't have to be all that earth shattering that some people prefer Dawn while others prefer DAZ figures or Smith Micro figures.
...I rarely use any default (human) figure myself either, save for maybe the original Toon Kids (Sadie & Sam) and even then, I have several different characters/morph sets for them.
This is also why I haven't done much with Dawn as again on my budget, I couldn't afford to get the extra morphs and shapes I needed. It's not that I dislike her, it's a "budget thing".